


The little things

by Aethelar



Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies)
Genre: Dealing With Trauma, M/M, Panic Attacks, Post-Grindelwald, Putting other people first and yourself never, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-03
Updated: 2019-11-03
Packaged: 2021-01-21 06:01:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,086
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21294707
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aethelar/pseuds/Aethelar
Summary: Newt is fine.
Relationships: Original Percival Graves/Newt Scamander
Comments: 2
Kudos: 181





	The little things

**Author's Note:**

> Warnings for panic attacks and temporary loss of limb (splinching)

There are things Newt never tells anyone about what happened during those few days in New York. Little things. Unimportant things. Things that don’t matter, that left no scars - things that are _fine_. Newt is fine.

_(But how did he know that it was Grindlewald wearing Graves’ care-worn face and twisting it with disdainful hatred? What isn’t he telling us, what did he see?)_

He’s hesitant around Graves, at first. It’s understandable; he doesn’t know him. Graves is a striking and imposing man, and he spends much of those first few months hurting more than he heals. It makes him… short. Never cruel, never vicious, but it takes a long time before Graves will let his defences down and show Newt the kind man underneath the pain.

A month after they meet, Graves retreats to the coffee room and spends a long minute with his eyes closed and his head pressed against the cool window. Newt freezes, awkwardly, half way through making a cup of tea and not wanting to disturb him, until Graves tells him to stop hovering and sit down. Newt makes his tea and Graves remakes his composure, and they part ways.

Three months after they meet, Graves retreats to the supply cupboard because it’s more defensible than the coffee room, and he slides down the wall to cower on the floor and berates himself for forgetting how to fucking _breathe_, how hard is it, just take a breath - take - just _breathe dammit._ Newt’s steady counting works where Graves’ angry recriminations don’t, and they sit together on the floor in something like peace and something like friendship until Graves is something like ready to face the world.

Eight months after they meet, Graves retreats to their bedroom and curls himself into Newt’s taller frame. He doesn’t say a word, but he doesn’t have to; Newt puts aside his book and rests an arm over Graves’ back and tells him about African cichlids and how the magical variant changes the colour of its scales to match its mood, and how one of them turned Newt purple when he got too close to their cave. Graves lifts himself up and kisses Newt on the cheek and tells him that Newt is his anchor, his rock, the reason he has survived and healed and become a kind man again.

Newt presses kisses of his own into Graves’ hair, and the little things that he doesn’t tell anyone - here, again, he doesn’t say.

They fester.

He pushes them aside. He’s Mummy to his creatures and they need him to be strong. He’s friend to Tina and Queenie and Jacob, and they have worries of their own, they don’t need Newt’s on top. He’s husband to Graves, and Graves is doing so much better these days but still has so far to go. Besides, they’re unimportant things, Newt’s secrets. They don’t matter. Newt’s fine.

They fester.

Grindelwald broke out of MACUSA almost as soon as they put him away, but the first thing he did was go to ground. No one knows where he is, or what face he’s wearing and twisting with his quiet madness. For the first few weeks they put a guard on Newt, because Newt was the one that revealed him, Newt was the one that caught him - but Grindelwald doesn’t come. The weeks turn to months and it’s a year, now, and Grindelwald still hasn’t come, and Newt keeps his secrets and he’s still fine.

All those things he doesn't say. They _fester_.

He sees Grindelwald in the shadows, lurking at the corner of his eye. There’s nothing there, of course there’s nothing. Newt turns, again, just to make sure; he backs out the alley and onto the brightly lit street, and he takes the long way home because he wants to, that’s the only reason. He hums when he’s alone in the house because it drowns out the whispers and the _what ifs_ and he counts in and out to help himself remember to breathe. He smiles for Tina and he’s steady for Graves and he presses his head into the graphorn’s leathery side and takes a minute to remake his composure before he can go back out and pretend that everything is _fine._

In his dreams he runs and the shadows follow him, he puts his hands over his ears and _screams_ and the whispers eat him, he smiles for Tina and he’s steady for Graves and Graves reaches back and strokes his thumb over Newt’s cheek to wipe away his tears and says _you really shouldn’t have done that_ and his face twists into hatred, his fingers are claws they dig into Newt’s skull and Grindelwald says _didn’t I warn you, didn’t you listen, _he says, _you shouldn’t have done that you need to wake up I told you I’d find you Newt please it’s a dream_, he says _you have no one to blame but yourself you need to wake up please Newt wake - _

He wakes up, and Graves hovers over him (he says _told you I’d find you _he says _Newt what’s wrong_). Newt jerks away, one hand flying out with an instinctive blasting curse that sends Graves sprawling but Newt’s too busy apparating to notice. He doesn’t know where he’s going, doesn’t know what he’s _doing_ \- he splinches himself. He splinches himself, and he lands in the rain with one arm and his pyjamas soaking through with blood and his chest on fire and no air in his lungs.

It takes him a long time to come back to himself. He counts the raindrops and ignores his arm and hunches over himself as though he could be his own anchor. He feels the desperate brush of a tracking charm sweeping through the city and shies away from it, pushing his magic down until he registers as barely more than a field mouse, small and insignificant and unimportant and _just a little thing_.

By morning, he’s dragged himself across the city and let himself be found; by morning, he’s remade his smile again and laughs off the splinching by showing Tina the amazing tourniquet he constructed from his pyjamas. For Graves, he doesn’t laugh; he holds his good arm open and pulls his shaking husband into a lopsided hug, and he runs his hand over Graves’ back and presses kisses into his hair. Kiss by kiss, Graves calms. Newt is his rock. His anchor. For Graves, Newt will be fine.

The splinched arm doesn’t even leave a scar.


End file.
